


Out of the Dark

by Hexiva



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Coming Out, First Kiss, M/M, Old mutants in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 10:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12167385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexiva/pseuds/Hexiva
Summary: Charles Xavier returns from the dead post-AvX. While he's still re-adjusting to life, he gets a visit from his oldest friend and dearest enemy, and they talk about everything that's happened between them.





	Out of the Dark

Charles Xavier stared up at the roof of his new apartment. It was too dark to see, but he was listening to the distant thrum of thoughts in the apartments surrounding them. A new mother, feeding her baby. A child watching cartoons. A man cooking dinner for his wife. 

To him, it was familiar. Normal. A way to ground himself, after the insanity of the past few years.

His doorbell rang. It took him a moment to realize that it was real and required some response from him. After so long lost in the Astral Plane, reality was taking some adjustment.

He levered himself out of bed and into his wheelchair, and then made his way to the door. As he did, it rang again. Normally, he would’ve been irritated. But now, he was just glad of someone to talk to. 

He opened the door and blinked. “Magneto?” he said.

“Perhaps ‘Erik’ might be more appropriate,” Magneto said, looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing his uniform - instead he was clad in a purple shirt with a black coat over it. “I’m trying to keep a low profile.”

“I can see that,” Charles said. “I take it you aren’t here to kidnap me again?” He hadn’t heard anything about Magneto since his return from the dead; didn’t know exactly whose side Magneto was on right now.

Magneto gave him a look. “No. You may be shocked to hear that it has been entire weeks since I have kidnapped anyone.”

“You really can’t blame me for asking,” Charles said, and held open the door. “Come in. I’ll make tea.”

Magneto followed him inside and sat down at the kitchen table. He looked around the small apartment. “This doesn’t seem like the usual kind of place you live, Charles,” he said. 

“I needed a place to stay quickly,” Charles said, setting the kettle to boil. “Somewhere that was accessible, somewhere that was . . . mine.” He looked away. “And I didn’t wish to intrude on the school. They seem to be . . . getting along well without me.” 

“You have been gone a long time,” Magneto pointed out gently.

“I know,” Charles said. “I didn’t expect them to wait for me.” He didn’t say,  _ They didn’t need me before, either.  _ He knew self-pity didn’t suit him, but he couldn’t help feeling empty and pointless, returning after a journey through hell to find the world had moved on without him.

“Charles . . . what happened to you?” Magneto asked.

Charles sighed and massaged his temples. “You were there when I died,” he said.

“Yes,” Magneto acknowledged. “But that wasn’t the end of it, was it?”

“ . . . No,” Charles said. He covered his eyes with one hand for a moment. “After I died,” he said, “The Red Skull . . . desecrated my body.”

“He stole your head,” Magneto said. “And used it to give himself your powers.”

“Yes,” Charles said. “But such things are never an exact science. I am not a separate entity from my powers. So he . . . he got some of me, too. For a long time, I couldn’t tell the difference between my thoughts and his. It was all just . . .” He took a deep breath. “Hatred. My hatred for him, and his hatred for the world.” He shuffled through his drawers, even though he knew exactly where the tea was, for something to do with his hands. “You know . . . Magnus, you know I have never believed in monsters. If you could see into their minds, you’d see that every human, every thinking being in this universe believes they are doing the right thing from their unique viewpoint, for their unique situation. They just need a little help.” He didn’t look up to see Magneto’s expression. “But the Red Skull. . . there was humanity in him once, I think. But it has all been burnt to ashes by the fires of hate. There is nothing else left inside him now. The only thing that keeps him going is that he hates the rest of the world more than he hates his own wretched existence.”

“I’m sorry, my friend,” Magneto said, quietly. “If I had known you were in there - I would have done everything in my power to free you.”

“You did,” Charles said. He shut his eyes. “You tried to kill me. To kill him.”

“I’m sorry,” Magneto started, “But I could not simply allow him to - ”

“No,” Charles said, sighing. “Shut up for a moment, Magnus, and let me talk. I’m trying to  _ thank  _ you. You tried to set me free.”

Magneto went silent. “I wouldn’t have expected you to condone murder,” he said. “At the time, I thought - ‘if he knew what I was doing, he would blame me still.’”

Charles shook his head. “This is not the first time my mind and my body have been turned to sinister purposes, and I know by now that I would rather die than suffer that again.”

“Then I would have done everything in my power to put you out of your misery.” Magneto smiled, sadly. “I can always be relied upon to kill.”

“In this case,” Charles said, “I would have thanked you.”

“But you  _ are  _ free,” Magneto pointed out. “And not dead. What happened?”

“You did something,” Charles said, “I think.”

Magneto nodded. “The inversion. Not all my work, but I did help. But it didn’t - the man in Red Skull’s body wasn’t you.”

“No.” Charles shook his head. “I was still a ghost. But I - found you.”

“That was truly you?” Magneto said. “I had - wondered. If it was some illusion of the Skull’s, or created by my own twisted mind to torment me.”

“It was me,” Charles said. “Or as much of me as there was, at the time.”

The tea kettle whistled, and Charles took it off the stove. He put a teabag each into two mugs, and poured the boiling water into them.

“Here,” Magneto said. He floated both cups over to the table using his powers.

“Thank you,” Charles said, returning to the table. He stirred his tea with a spoon. 

“You said I was right,” Magneto said, eventually. “When you came to me as a ghost.”

Charles stared into his tea. “I did,” he said. 

“Do you really believe that?” Magneto asked.

Charles was silent for a long time. “I don’t know,” he said. “I really - don’t know any more.” He poked at his teabag with the spoon, not ready to look Magnus in the eyes. “I have suffered before - as a child in my stepfather’s home, as a man in Korea. It should not be so easy to shake me from my path.”

“Maybe you’re not shaken,” Magneto said. “Maybe you’re just changing your mind.”

“Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Charles said, but without any real heat. 

“I suppose so,” Magneto said, tilting his head. His voice was kind. “I would rather see you bend than break, my friend.”

Charles’ hand tightened on the mug. “I - thank you,” he said. “Magnus, I don’t know what to believe anymore. Who am I, when my dream has failed? Who am I, without the X-Men? Without my students?”

“The same man you always have been,” Magneto said firmly. “Charles Xavier. My friend, you are more than what you have built. You should not judge your worth by the needs of others.”

Charles took a sip of his tea, and winced, having burnt his tongue. “You’re always so certain,” he said. “I envy you.”

Magneto raised his eyebrows. “Me? Certain? My friend, I have changed sides more than any other in this battle. I am not certain of anything. I am merely less concerned about what others will think than you are.”

“Yes,” Charles said. “Yes, I suppose that has always been my flaw. I hid so much . . .” He stared down into his tea, miserably. “All these years, I hid everything. I hid my flaws so well that the hiding, itself, became my flaw.”

Magneto blew on his tea to cool it. “After the death of my daughter,” he said, “I went to great lengths to hide my own identity. Partly because I was fleeing justice, but partly because I felt that it no longer fit me. That’s where you found me, in Israel. Working under a fake name.”

“‘Erik’ isn’t your real name, is it?” Charles asked. 

Magneto shook his head. “No,” he said. Then he looked up at Charles and offered him a wry grin. “All cards on the table, Charles? My secrets for yours?”

Charles swallowed. “I - will try my best,” he said.

“My name is Max Eisenhardt,” Magneto said. “Or, at least, it was once. It was the name my parents gave me. Now, I suppose, my true name is Magneto.”

“Your true name is whatever you decide it is, my friend,” Charles said.

Magneto took a sip of his tea. “Your turn, Charles. Secrets on the table.”

“That is a rather broad request,” Charles said, sipping his own tea thoughtfully. “I - Magnus, I have kept so many things from so many people, over the years.”

“I know,” Magneto said, gently.

Charles shut his eyes. “But the truth is, most of them have come out. One by one, all of my lies have been uncovered. The world knows, now, that I’m a mutant. And the X-Men know that I’m a liar.” He took another sip of tea. “I never would have let the world know I was a mutant of my own free will, you know. I felt - safe - when no one knew.” He laughed. “Even though I was still made the victim of a hate crime at least once. I suppose I did not hide it as well as I thought. But I never wanted to be perceived as - lesser. I suppose that makes me a hypocrite, doesn’t it? All these years, I have been preaching that mutants  _ aren’t  _ lesser than humans. But I knew they would see me that way if they knew. Or, worse, that they would be afraid of me. I’m not like you, Magnus - I can’t stand to be feared. And there were other things too, other secrets to hide. I thought, if I could hide everything, I could play the part of the straight, white, able-bodied human male, condescending to give rights to the minorities.” He patted the armrest of his wheelchair. “Of course, Lucifer ruined that. There was no hiding that I was paralyzed from the waist down, and I  _ hated  _ that. For the first time, everyone could look at me and  _ know,  _ without a shadow of a doubt, that I was not - normal. And of course, they made assumptions based on that.”

“You know I would have lashed out, had anyone made such assumptions about me,” Magneto said. “I suppose one might say you have reacted better.”

“I suppose so,” Charles said. “But it only made me more determined to hide - everything else. I knew that - I could not hide my mutant identity from everyone. That it was my duty to reach out and form a community for mutants, so that the children of the future would not be as lost and alone as I was. There remained only one aspect of my identity to hide, one I had known about since - oh, I don’t know. Since the war, at least.” He didn’t mean WWII. There was only one war which loomed large in his mind. “The war was . . . good for me, in that respect, I suppose. There were men there who had a great deal more to lose from losing their secrets than I did, and so I had a certain degree of freedom. With my powers, I could know for certain who was interested in me, and having approached them, they could not out me without also outing themselves. I was able to . . . experiment, so to speak.”

“I take it you are trying to inform me, in your roundabout way, that you are a homosexual,” Magneto said.

Charles wasn’t overly fond of that term, but he let it pass. “‘Bisexual’ would be more accurate,” he said. “My fondness for the fairer sex wasn’t fake.”

Magneto set his tea mug down and leaned forward. “If you expect me to think less of you because of this, you have gravely underestimated me,” he said. “My own grandson is engaged to another man. And if I were to reject you because of your identity, I would be the worst kind of hypocrite, because everything I have done was done in the aim of created a world where no one would need to hide who they are.”

Charles sighed, and a bit of the tension went out of his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “I should have known you wouldn’t judge me. But I’m not used to being - uncovered.”

“Vulnerable,” Magneto put in.

Charles pursed his lips. “Perhaps,” he said, unwilling to concede the point. He took a big gulp of his tea. “Magnus,” he said, after a long moment, “You must know that there is a reason I am telling you this.”

“Other than because I asked?” Magneto said, raising his eyebrows.

“Of course.”

“You are trying to convey to me that you are attracted to me. And, being Charles Xavier, you’ve chosen to do this via a lengthy dissertation on identity rather than by any of the traditional methods.” Magneto’s mouth curled in a long, thin smirk, amused by Charles’ manner.

“Oh, don’t talk like you’re the master of brevity yourself,” Charles snapped, but there was an edge of humor to it. 

“No, I am the Master of Magnetism, remember?” Magneto raised one eyebrow and pointed at Charles with his spoon.

“Ha, very funny,” Charles said, dryly. They drank their tea in silence for a moment, before Charles couldn’t bear it, and asked, “And you?”

“And me, what?” Magneto asked.

“Are you straight?” Charles asked, directly.

“Hmm,” Magneto said, taking a sip of his tea. “Yes,” he said, after a moment, and Charles’ heart sunk. “Yes, I am straight,” Magneto continued, seeming not to notice. “But not without exception.”

“Without exception?” Charles said, skeptically. “What does that mean?”

“It means there have, from time to time, been men who caught my eye. Namor. Sebastian Shaw.” Magneto looked up at Charles. “You.”

For a moment, Charles couldn’t breathe. “Your taste in men is appalling,” he said, after a moment. 

“Now, now, I will hear no ill spoken of Namor, he is an honorable man,” Magneto said, with a smirk. “As for the others, though, I agree.”

“I’m hurt,” Charles teased, stirring his tea. He felt like a great weight had been lifted off of his heart, and he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. 

“So, where do we go from here?” Magneto asked. 

Charles took another sip of his tea, and sat thoughtfully for awhile. “You once told me that you thought our time was over. Back when we met on Utopia.”

Magneto nodded. “Perhaps it is.”

“Then where does that leave us?” Charles waved broadly. 

“I don’t know,” Magneto said, smiling slightly. “Wherever we want to be, I suppose. Charles, you’re overthinking this.”

“Am I?” Charles asked.

“Yes.” Magneto set his tea down to the side, and then stood, leaning over the table to press his lips to Charles’, one hand on the table and one hand cupping Charles’ chin. His lips were warm and soft. Charles let his eyes slide shut.

Magneto pulled back. Charles opened his eyes and found Magneto standing up and rubbing his back ruefully. “Back’s not what it used to be?” he asked, amused.

“I shall have to sit down before we try that again,” Magneto said. “But we  _ will  _ try that again.” He smiled.

“I can think of worse ways to spend my time,” Charles said, returning the smile.

“So can I,” Magneto agreed. “May I?” he asked, stepping behind Charles’ wheelchair.

“Of course,” Charles said, with a nod.

Magneto pushed him further into the apartment, towards the sofa and the promise of a bed. 


End file.
